Wedding Saxophones are Playing

There’s a lot of traffic during my daily commute. Sometimes it’s because there’s a man pushing a fruit cart in the middle of the street. Sometimes, there are just a ton of cars. Yesterday, traffic came to a standstill because a large cow started peeing in the middle of the road.

Today we were blocked by a resplendent groom on a horse and his wedding party. A hired band wearing gold uniforms was blasting music while old men in matching red turbans danced behind the horse.

It made me realize that in 1 week, I’ll be heading to Puttur for my cousin’s wedding. I’ve had mixed feelings about the wedding for a while, but I can honestly say that right now I’m really excited. I can’t wait; I’m ready to party hard – Kathribail style.

I made a peanut-butter sandwich for lunch today; it was surprisingly unsatisfying. So I decided, since I was kind of reaching a stopping point in my work, I’d head out to the canteen for another bite to eat. I eventually made it to the canteen, found a table, and ordered some Gobi Manchurian. (Lord, I cannot get enough of that stuff.)

As I waited for my food, a middle-aged-but-getting-up-there-in-age-department lady in a bright maroon sari asked me if someone was sitting in the chair across from me. I told her not at all, that she was more than welcome to it.

She ordered a bowl of fruit and a jamun. (Interesting combo… though not as interesting as the time I saw a man put jamun on his rice at Rasoi, CoMo’s Indian restaurant.)

We sat in silence until her jamun arrived. She immediately cut it in half, offering me a bite. She did the same when her fruit salad came.

Why do random old ladies always try to feed me? And why are they always so insistent?

When my Gobi Manchurian came, I tried to return the favor by giving her a few spoonfuls. No matter what I said though, she declined, saying it was “bad for the health.” Gobi Manchurian is unhealthy, but you eat a jamun every day?

Right.

I have a long way to go before I can become an old lady – at least in the conning-off-food category.

But this one-sided food exchange got us talking, and I learned a lot about her. Apparently this lady was the head manager of the library for IISc. She got her masters in Physics but then did a Library-Sciences internship at Rutgers and decided to be a library manager. She’s been working at the IISc library for over 20 years now.

Her opinions on Gobi Manchurian and other chaat foods are far more interesting than her eclectic academic background.

So now I have the contact info of a successful head librarian and a recommendation to a chaat shop nearby. (I’m supposed to eat something called the Nipittu-Masala-Bun.)

I also have only an hour’s worth of work standing in between me and the weekend.

Hooray!

-June 10th